A Better Home For Wheelchairs
The world wasn’t made for wheelchairs. Just ask Patty Connelly.
A hereditary nerve disorder has sidelined Patty from most physical activity. But it hasn’t damaged her 33-year-old mind or heart. She still cuddles her three children, reads to them and teaches them arithmetic. She cooks, cleans her home and conducts her life with quiet dignity.
But most homes don’t make life easy for Patty. That’s why she and her husband, Bill, are customizing a new manufactured home.
“It’s very hard with a wheelchair to find a ready-built house,” Patty says, using as an example the apartment her family is renting until their home is ready.
Patty can’t roll her chair over the decorative rock between the parking lot and the closest door to the apartment. The bedrooms are down a narrow hall that doesn’t allow her to turn around. A wall blocks direct access between the dining room and kitchen.
The sink is in the wrong place in the bathroom. Patty can’t lean on it for support, so she relies on help.
“I’m trying not to be impatient, but I can’t wait to move,” she says, her soft, musical voice rising a notch.
The Connellys recently moved from Vancouver, Wash., to be near Post Falls’ Immaculate Conception Church with its traditional Roman Catholic mass.
Already-built homes close to church weren’t suitable for them. Steps, narrow doorways and fractured walkways made it difficult for Patty even to approach them. Once inside, she’d never be able to leave without help.
The manufactured home they finally chose needed closet rods lowered, doors widened and windows and grab bars moved, which cost the Connellys $3,000 extra. Patty grumbles about the expense because the home somehow met federal standards for handicapped use without changes.
Still, it has no hall and will be installed so the entrance is flush with the ground.
“I’m just like everyone,” she says. “I want a house that’s workable.”
Sale of the century
The EXCEL Foundation has added so much to Coeur d’Alene School District classrooms over the years that it deserves much more than your junk. But rummage is all EXCEL is asking for right now.
EXCEL’s World’s Greatest Rummage Sale needs donations of hand-me-downs and cast-off treasures. Money from your junk could buy special microscopes, literature programs or computer software. A volunteer will pick up your items if you call 772-6112.
Remember when?
Ace Travel’s Dave Walker isn’t older than dirt, really. He’s only 39, but he remembers riding his Sting-Ray bike through the “deep woods” between 12th and 15th streets just south of Coeur d’Alene’s Best Avenue.
He and his friends also tore up the trails in “Hospital Hills” during the 1960s, when a single-story Kootenai Medical Center was under construction there.
Dave was born in Lake City General downtown. Now he works just down the street from there. “In 40 years, I’ve come half a block,” he says. He wouldn’t have it any other way.
Wild kingdom
Elk Creek’s Dorothy Brainard has watched a moose mosey through her yard and a skunk eat her cat’s food. A black bear and deer stopped by her neighbors’ homes. They didn’t really surprise them.
But Dorothy admits the cougar she ran into recently while walking her dogs on a nearby hillside shook her up. She dashed the 100 yards home faster than she’s ever run, according to her husband, Wendell Brainard.
What four-legged or furry visitors have surprised you at home and what did you do? Unleash those tales on Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene, ID, 83814; fax them to 765-7149; or call 765-7128 and thrill me with your voice.